IQNA

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Representative of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei for Hajj confirmed that Iran has received an invitation from Saudi Arabia to discuss preparations for this year’s annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Hojat-ol-Islam Seyyed Ali Qazi-Askar said the invitation is
no different from previous ones, adding that Iran would respond to the
invitation over the next few days and will dispatch a delegation to the Arab
country for talks on the next Hajj pilgrimage.

He added that the negotiations would cover issues like
accommodation, transportation, safety, medical care, visas and banking, Tasnim
reported.

Hojat-ol-Islam Qazi-Askar underlined that necessary
preparations should be made for sending Iranian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for
Hajj.

Last week, a senior Iranian official dismissed reports that
Saudi Arabia had invited Iran to discuss the resumption of Iranians’
participation in Hajj pilgrimage.

"Contrary to the report published by some media outlets
about the extension of an invitation by Saudi Arabia for Iran’s participation
in this year’s Hajj rituals, we have received no invitation,” the head of Iran’s
Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, Hamid Mohammadi, had said.

In September 2015, a deadly human crush occurred during Hajj
rituals in Mina, near Mecca. Days into the incident, Saudi Arabia published a
death toll of 770 but refused to update it despite gradually surging fatality
figures from individual countries whose nationals had been among the victims of
the crush. Iran said about 4,700 people, including over 465 of its nationals,
lost their lives in the incident.

Earlier that same month, a massive construction crane had
collapsed into Mecca’s Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 pilgrims, including
11 Iranians, and injuring over 200 others, among them 32 Iranian nationals.

Serious questions were raised about the competence of Saudi
authorities to manage the Hajj rituals in the wake of the incidents, and,
facing Saudi intransigence to cooperate and refusal to guarantee the safety of
Iranian pilgrims, officials in the Islamic Republic subsequently decided to
halt pilgrimages over security concerns.

Saudi Arabia unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with
Iran in January this year after protests in front of its diplomatic premises in
Tehran and Mashhad against the execution by Riyadh of prominent Saudi Shia
cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.